Excessive false positives on STF's automatic ban program

[Castanica]

Pretty good chance OP is going to be perma banned from the forum for making this post, good luck to you.

[Bluestar2kx]

Talks about windower but gives two examples of flee hacking software.

Lets talk about the more recent examples that have cropped up on other forums. One person was banned for fishing for too long while finishing an ebisu +1. Another person was banned and they're not sure why but at their best guess it was from being in the same skirmish run as someone who was flee hacking. If you're going to get STF banned for playing the game for too long or being in a party with a cheater that is concerning. I'm all in favor of banning people blatantly abusing game mechanics but these examples are not those kinds of players.

And those examples you gave were common RMt activity methods. It's logical to assume the "automated bot" detected that and determined as such activity and banned the player. Though we don't have wide spread RMT issues anymore, I imagine they're not completely gone, so the script is still in place. Not saying someone should have to stop fishing to avoid being flagged, but if it is indeed flagging people that way, it would be wise to adjust your play patterns to avoid it, until, or if SE does something about it.

And to a serious question, how can someone sit and fish for hours like that anyway? I've done a couple of dyna runs in a row and that just puts me to sleep as it is before I even finish the first one... I couldn't imagine doing fishing for the same length of time and not go crazy. (are we sure they weren't using a fishing bot?)

And whether or not windower was detectable before or not, is irrelevant, 3rd party software is against the rules, so banning for using it is a logical step unless they amend the ToS to allow windower functions, but that's unlikely because it would be abused easily, so long story short, stop using it if you are and are worried about your account.

With that said, if they are indeed banning legitimately playing accounts for the actions of others, or for flagged falsely for RMT activity, then they need to adjust the bot or have someone review the cases. They definitely need better communication and ways to contact STF staff to flag a review and redetermination. This is important for any company.

[bazookatooth]

To the best of my understanding: When you have both WIndower and FFXI running, the Windower and POL are together in the same memory space. I won't pretend that I have a PhD in Computer Science, nor will I claim that I have some insight into the minds of the programmers at SE. However, I think it's kinda' obvious that there's some kind of "Black Magic" (no pun intended) inside of POL that will inform SE if it detects that something in your systems memory that POL deems is "less than Kosher".

They don't need to do something as intrusive as scanning your memory. I don't even think they could do that if they wanted to. But they can tell from their end pretty easily. The question is, do they want to.

[Hoshi]

And those examples you gave were common RMt activity methods. It's logical to assume the "automated bot" detected that and determined as such activity and banned the player. Though we don't have wide spread RMT issues anymore, I imagine they're not completely gone, so the script is still in place. Not saying someone should have to stop fishing to avoid being flagged, but if it is indeed flagging people that way, it would be wise to adjust your play patterns to avoid it, until, or if SE does something about it.

The thing about the ebisu quest though is that you're not fishing in the same zone for many hours. This player was moving from zone to zone fishing for many different fish - it really shouldn't have flagged the RMT filter because what kind of fishbot changes zones all the time? I will admit that more than about 5 hours of fishing puts me to sleep and I often tab away from ffxi until the music changes but I find fishing in medium doses to be relaxing. With that being said I can totally understand how someone would play for nearly 3 days straight in the quest for an afterglow. It's very easy to lose track of days when you're very close to a big goal.

[Urat]

Heyo, Im the guy who got a temp ban for fishing too much

Talked to Se on the phone and cleared everything up afterwards, they gave me the contact info for the american representative for the STF.

The real issue here is the only way to contact this person is by literally mailing him by paper at SE's headquarters.

What we need is a way to contact the STF by email directly to message inquiries.

The STF director is over here in America, btw. His office is at SE headquarters near LA.

If you call SE support and ask for the Director of Special Task Force's contact information they can give you the address to mail him.

I already sent a letter to SE about this issue myself, and I urge others to do the same so he hears what we have to say.

As for the banning: I can confirm I was not breaking the ToS at the time in any way. I racked up over 40 hours of fishing in a 2 day period.

The reason for this was I took a long nap right before the update for Ebisu+1 dropped, so I woke up right as patch landed (set alarm and everything) then pulled an all nighter grinding for 20 hours.

I then went to sleep for I think 4 hours, and grinded for 20 more hours, while taking a couple 2 hour naps.

The Ebisu quest involves travelling all around the world catching a single fish of 100 different types. You cannot cheat in any way to do this quest, and even if I wanted to cheat (which I don't and tell everyone I know not to do, its not worth the risk), it was immeaditly (literally) after a new patch, and everyone knows cheating methods generally break right after a patch anyways.

As I will always say, do not cheat, I even recommend against using the tools that automatically swap gear for you. Even those are not necessary for a skilled player now that SE added gearswaps.

Fishing minigame means fishing isnt as boring as it used to be, don't fish bot! Its super not worth risking your account over!

Flee hacks are just super blatant cheating, don't use them, not only will you definitely get banned but you endanger the accounts of anyone you do runs with when using the program, as they can get banned with you!!! This is a big deal!

Gearswapping third party tools are really not necessary unless you want to be very lazy, as SE added gearsets to the game. Clever use of macros, the /macro set command, proper use of <wait #> command, and other clever macro tricks are more than enough to get by for anything I can imagine in game.

There is no need for third party programs that display party TP, as there is a command in game that does this! Don't need that either!!!!

Finally, crafting bot programs are also completely unnecessary and only lazy cheaters would use them. For those that don't know, SE added the /lastsynth command awhile back that makes you redo the last synth you did.

The following in game macro will do the same synth 5 times and then do <call15> in chat to notify you to do the macro again. No cheating necessary once again!

/lastsynth <wait 23>
/lastsynth <wait 23>
/lastsynth <wait 23>
/lastsynth <wait 23>
/lastsynth <wait 18>
/p Times up! <call 15>

I am proud to say I do not use 3rd party software at all at this time, despite playing beastmaster, summoner, and dancer. All jobs a lot of players seem to think you need to use 3rd party stuff to be able to handle.

Instead I have a large amount of gearswaps full but more importantly a LOT of macros full.

Learning how to properly use the following things will make your life a lot easier:

/itemsearch "Name" - Lists instances of item "Name" in your various inventories. Good for when you cant find a specific item.

/macro set/book # - Swaps your current macro book or set to value. Great for making tiling macros.

Example:

Summoner macro sets
#1: Holds the macros to summon avatars
#2-8 Holds macro commands for specific BPs of avatars

Have each macro in set 1 finish with /macro set # so you swap to the macro set to that avatar.

IE

/ma Carbuncle
/macro set 2 (this set has carby's blood pacts in it)

Furthermore, you could set ctrl-0 in macro sets 2-8 to /release and then /macro set 1 to go back to the start.

Instead of shuffling around trying to find the right set, having your set #1 act as a 'menu' to select other sets (IE ctrl-0 on every set sends you back to 0, and ctrl 1-9 selects sets 1-9) is a good way to quickly flip through macro sets on the fly.

<bt> - the current battle target (denoted by having a red name)

<stpc> the next player you can do the command on
<stpt> the next party member you can do the command on.

IE you can easily cast sneak on the whole party with just /ma Sneak <stpt>

Each time it'll cycle to the next player that is avialable!

<p1>..<p5> your party members!
<a10>...<a15> <a20>...<a25> your alliance members!

I think a lot of the reason people still use third party stuff is they have no idea most of the functionality is just built in to the game itself, and they don't know it.

There is just no need to cheat in ffxi anymore, really. The only cheaters now are people pos hacking around, which is just blatant "I dont want to work for my reward, Ill just teleport to it" cheating.

And they deserve their bans.

[Urat]

Here's a great example of a black mage macro book I'd recommend for people who don't want to cheat and want a vanilla in game alternative. IE console players and more importantly, PC players who don't want to suddenly be dead fish in barrel for the first 2 days after a new patch from SE. It's totally worth the work!

Blm book

Set 1: The selection set
Ctrl 1 "Fire": /set 2
Ctrl 2 "Ice": /set 3
Ctrl 3 "Wind": /set 4
Ctrl 4 "Earth" /set 5
Ctrl 5 "Lightning" /set 6
Ctrl 6 "Water": /set 7
Ctrl 7 "Buffs": /set 8
Ctrl 8 "Debuffs" /set 9

Sets 2-6
Ctrl 1 "Element" (IE ctrl 2-1 would be "Fire")
Ctrl 2 "Element II"
Ctrl 3 "Element III"
Ctrl 4 "Element IV"
Ctrl 5 "Element V"
Ctrl 6 "Element VI"
Ctrl 7 "" - I like to leave this blank
Ctrl 8 "AM"
Ctrl 9 "AM II"
Ctrl 0 "Back"
Alt 1 -Aga (alt 2-1 is Firaga)
Alt 2 -Aga II
Alt 3 -Aga III
Alt 4 - Aja
Alt 5 - Blank
Alt 6 -Spikes (IE Alt 3-1 is Fire Spikes)
Alt 7 - DoT (IE Shock/Choke/Frost etc)
Alt 8 - Blank
Alt 9 - Buff (Specifically I put Stoneskin in the stone set, Aqueveil in the water set, Blink in the wind set, etc)
Alt 0 - Back

So for example the fire set, Set 2, would be:
Fire - Fire II - Fire III - Fire IV - Fire V - Fire VI - "" - Flare - Flare II - BACK
Firaga - Firaga II - Firaga III - Firaja - "" -Fire Spikes - Burn - "" - "" - BACK

Each spell macro is the following:

/macro set 1 (this means as soon as I hit a spell, I go right back to the start asap.
/equipset Precastset# <wait 1> where precastset is the right number
/ma "SpellName" <wait #> Make sure <wait is the right amount of time so the next line goes off about 2 secs before spell ends.
/equipset Aftercastset# <wait 3>
/equipset Idleset#
/echo <<Ready To Go!>

And Alt 0 and Ctrl 0 are just the line /macro set 0 to go back to the base set

This means I can do the following:

Currently at base set, if not for some odd reason (I messed up before and am fixing mistake) I can hit ctrl 0 to go to it.

If I want to cast Frost, I would hit Ctrl 2 to go to my Ice macro set, then Alt 6 for the DoT, the same macro also sends me right back to set 1 as well.

Set 8 and 9, the debuff set, is where I keep poison/bio/slow/bind etc, and Set 9 is my buff set, where I generally put Cures, protectra, etc, depending on the job.

This will generally completely negate the need for any third party software for doing gearswaps. Its way WAY faster than navigating the magic menu anyways, so its actually better than any third party software you would want to use /anyways/

So you don't need to cheat AND this works better and cleaner AND it wont break on you whenever SE drops a patch.

Cheers!

If you are all curious as to how I set up my dancer macros, feel free to ask. My dancer macros are even dynamic enough that I can swap what my combat Idling sets are between 6 different sets (turtle - defensive - Balanced - accuracy - zerg - mdef)

Its pretty self explanatory though.

Ctrl 1 cycles me up a set, alt 1 cycles me down.

However ctrl 1-1 sends me to set 6, and alt 6-1 sends me to set 1, not set 7. Thus I cycle between 6 sets.

Each set is identicle otherwise:

/equipset gearforthedance <wait 1>
/ja Dance <t> <wait 1>
/equipset ThisSetsIdleSet

Thats pretty much it :|

I have it as such

Up - HW - CW3 - CW4 - DW - DW2 - QS - BS - SS - FS
Down - VF - RF - WF - CF - Rudras - HS - DS3 - SD - FD

HW/CW/DW - Healing/Curing/Divine Waltz
QS/BS/SS/FS - Steps (all of which have presto macroed in to them, if presto isnt up itll just step without presto)
VF/RF/WF/CF - Flourishes
HS/DS - Sambas
SD/FD - Fan/Saber Dance

Thats all there is to it

[Rainehx]

While they maybe going a little to far in some cases im glad over all.

Other month someone was telling me about Lua scripts.... wow really?
Ws for you, engage for you, swap gear for you when engaging, I stopped him there, I didn't want to know more, I did Wonder though, why do people who do this even play the game? if you can call it that..... with these things?

If you get so little fun that you have to make the game play itself for you, why bother.

[bungiefanNA]

It's the same idea as Gambits in FFXII, except automating better. Such macros will have better reflexes than you, allowing you to clear content that may otherwise be too difficult, or at least a gamble on clearing, which is the point of using it for the people that do so. People in IT will do this for aspects of their jobs, taking out the tedious parts by spending a bit of time to automate and test them, so they can concentrate on other aspects.

[Rainehx]

Such macros will have better reflexes than you, allowing you to clear content that may otherwise be too difficult

So essentially a cheat = allowing you to do things you otherwise couldn't?

I still don't get it, if your doing things to take away user control over whats happening in the game, why play it? I guess some value showing off there
new shinnys in town more than actually playing the game and earning them fairly.

Also find it amusing its these people that "cheat" think they are
elite, so they have the right to... they are only just above average because of the "cheats" they use, not the other way round.
You can see this after every patch when those people seem to vanish for days.... wouldn't wanna show what they are really like when they don't have there auto stuff.

Hohum, please continue SE

[Seillan]

Correct me if I'm wrong (I've only played FFXII a tiny bit) but it's not possible to automate combat for the main character you're playing in XII, is it? I imagine that's what Rain is getting at and I have to agree -- if you're going to automate the game to the point where a program is literally playing for you, what's the point of "playing" it at all? I guess I can see some argument in using it to get past difficult content that you wouldn't otherwise be able to complete on your own, but I'd still question why someone would even bother playing the game if they're just going to try their best to forgo any challenge that they face and can't instantly conquer. I did my first LB5 on my BLU awhile back, and even though I could have gotten the rhapsodies KI that would allow me to use my Trusts, I wanted to do it alone, as everyone else had before me. I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but it took me 12 tries to kill Raubahn. I've never had to strategize so much for any fight in any game I've played, but once I finally got it down and managed to beat him, the rewarding feeling afterwards was palpable.

To each their own of course, but I just really don't see how anyone enjoys steam rolling through a game whilst avoiding the challenging parts -- even more so if they do it by using 3rd party automation.